My great Uncle James fell in love in his eighties. His wonderful wife of many decades had passed away, and he assumed his life was over. He said there was nothing left for him to do; he gave up his driver’s license and most of his activities. When I drove to visit him over the next year, he would stare sadly out the window. And then- Mary Rose. She lived across the hall from him at the assisted living facility, and the two of them became inseparable. He looked 20 years younger; he got back his driver’s license and the spring in his step. When they came to visit here in Abingdon, we ate at Shoney’s, and he and Mary Rose played footsie under the table and fed each other pie. Their love was larger than life, and it lifted everyone around them. I held Rose Marie’s hand at his funeral, and I will never forget her face: smiling through tears and saying how truly happy she was for the time they’d had together.

The great sweetness and pain of our lives is part of what makes life such an incredible gift. In this play, the characters experience these feelings through the great heights and depths of opera, and through their own simple lives as well. Often, the true drama of our lives plays out in everyday places: on a subway, in a living room, in a dog park…. Our lives will always answer to the realities of the day to day—but it matters that we listen to what our wild hearts want. The great opera of our lives is unfolding all around us when we leap to seize it, at any moment, at any age.

- Katy Brown, Director